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AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Fusion power is something like 30 to 50 years away from being feasible on a commercial scale.

Saving energy by efficient gadgets is a good thing because you don't need to spend so much on your national grid and the size of your power plants.

There are all sorts of ways to save energy, such as fitting double glazing and switching off lights in the rooms you are not using.

Exactly! I just can't get how SAVING energy can be a bad thing. Regarding the "feth the donkey-caves" argument, yes, feth them! We DON'T need as much electricity to "live our modern lives" if we use what we have more effeciently! That's what I've been saying all along!

Evidently you do. How many glowing LEDS from IPODs, IPADs, and IVEGOTTATAKEADUMPs, have you added to your arsenal in the last five years?

It depends.

I've got an iPod, which replaced my minidisc player, which replaced my personal CD player, which replaced my cassette Walkman.

However I've got two DAB radios which replaced analogue radios which used less power, and a router which is on all the time.

I'm more careful about switching off lights and stuff now that I have one of those gadgets that shows haw many pence of electric your house is using every minute.

Kilkrazy wrote:It depends.

I've got an iPod, which replaced my minidisc player, which replaced my personal CD player, which replaced my cassette Walkman.

However I've got two DAB radios which replaced analogue radios which used less power, and a router which is on all the time.

I'm more careful about switching off lights and stuff now that I have one of those gadgets that shows haw many pence of electric your house is using every minute.

Go inot your den at night, or kitchen. You'll be shocked at how many lights there are going.

Deleted

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Exactly! I just can't get how SAVING energy can be a bad thing. Regarding the "feth the donkey-caves" argument, yes, feth them! We DON'T need as much electricity to "live our modern lives" if we use what we have more effeciently! That's what I've been saying all along!

Except it doesn't work that way and never will. You're not going to change the trend of ever increasing electrical demand. You might reduce the rate of growth from 5% to 4.8% (or whatever the number is) a year but you're never going to make enough of a difference that you'll end a year needing less energy than you started.

The biggest reason is that the most energy saving methods are simply unaffordable for a great many people. "Properly insulated homes," nice idea, worth pursuing, but what about the older homes that most of the population lives in? Ones that would require thousands of dollars to reinsulate and will never be as efficient as new construction? Unless you want to federally mandate that people do it I don't see it happening. One of the biggest residential consumers of electricity is air conditioning. Unless you want to give the cops all temperature guns and have them start making sure no one sets their AC below the new federally mandated level how much success do you really think you're going to have getting people to raise the temperatures in their homes?

Long story short, conservation isn't going to do it. Period. You can maybe set up new building codes for how well you insulate homes, outlaw incandescent bulbs, etc. but at the end of the day it's never going to be enough. You're better off focusing on how you get your power and looking for better ways to do that (nuclear) than trying to reverse the demand for more energy.

Except it doesn't work that way and never will. You're not going to change the trend of ever increasing electrical demand. You might reduce the rate of growth from 5% to 4.8% (or whatever the number is) a year but you're never going to make enough of a difference that you'll end a year needing less energy than you started.

Ah, what I had meant to say, in a clearer statement.

Nurglitch wrote:A CANDU reactor wouldn't be having this problem. You know what happens when the coolant drains out of a CANDU reactor? The reactor stops. Doesn't require an enrichment process, and can run on the waste produced by less Canadian reactors. The downside? They're expensive, and sometimes human life is worth cutting a few corners.

Nice try, CANDU reactor salesman.

By all means, build nuclear power plants.

Just don't build them on top of unstable tectonic plates.
I would have thought that was obvious, but, evidentially not...

Wolfun wrote:By all means, build nuclear power plants.

Just don't build them on top of unstable tectonic plates.
I would have thought that was obvious, but, evidentially not...

To be accurate you should say - near the ocean. It wasn't the quakes that got them.

Here is the list of my stuff in Japan. I would be interested to know how this compares with the US.

Gate light (at night) and entry camera system
Path lights, porch light, and security light, on motion sensors, at night.
Entry phone x2
Bath controller x2
Security system
Air conditioning
Washlet x2
Digital phone
Phone/fax machine
Cable modem
Wireless router
Computer

Tyyr wrote:
The biggest reason is that the most energy saving methods are simply unaffordable for a great many people. "Properly insulated homes," nice idea, worth pursuing, but what about the older homes that most of the population lives in?

What I'm mostly after is that there's still a lot of houses being built in industrialized countries that are rubbish when it comes to insulation. For example, there's still houses being built without double windows, which is just silly.

Frazzled wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Fusion power is something like 30 to 50 years away from being feasible on a commercial scale.

Saving energy by efficient gadgets is a good thing because you don't need to spend so much on your national grid and the size of your power plants.

There are all sorts of ways to save energy, such as fitting double glazing and switching off lights in the rooms you are not using.

Exactly! I just can't get how SAVING energy can be a bad thing. Regarding the "feth the donkey-caves" argument, yes, feth them! We DON'T need as much electricity to "live our modern lives" if we use what we have more effeciently! That's what I've been saying all along!

Evidently you do. How many glowing LEDS from IPODs, IPADs, and IVEGOTTATAKEADUMPs, have you added to your arsenal in the last five years?

Three. A new cellphone to replace my old one which died and two gaming consoles. Four if you count the flashlight keyring some random promoter gave me that I snuck back into his pile of rubbish promotion goods. Compare that to an aquaintance I have that absolutely has to have all the latest doo-dahs. I think you'll find that there's plenty of things we all could cut down on, myself included.


On a slightly related note, I remember watching some documentary on NatGeo a while back about some professor who used some sort of solar furnace to create gasoline out of the CO2 in the air. The prototype worked, so who knows, that might solve a lot of our problems.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:What I'm mostly after is that there's still a lot of houses being built in industrialized countries that are rubbish when it comes to insulation. For example, there's still houses being built without double windows, which is just silly.

You totally missed the point. Yes, it makes great sense to build new construction up to a higher standard. However that does nothing with regards to the 90%+ of people not living in new construction houses. People who would be living in them for a long time and who might not ever consider moving into one of your new construction houses or buildings. So while your new building might require less electricity than an existing one you're not displacing one old house with your new one. The old one is still there and you've got the added load of the new house. You've slowed the rate of growth in electrical demand but you haven't stopped it. So long as the population is growing you'll never make a dent in residential demand growth.

There's nothing wrong with conservation and I'm all for it. There's no good reason either financially or environmentally to use more than you actually need. However you're not going to get away from an every increasing demand for electricity. Certainly not with the two largest populations on the planet, China and India, modernizing at a phenomenal rate. Because while you're packing a bit more insulation into your attic China is slamming down a new 600MW coal fired power plant every single week.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Saying that accidents "won't happen" or "likely won't happen" just doesn't cut it, look at Japan ATM.

If I hear one more person talking about how terrible the nuclear reactor problem in Japan is, I might have to punch a dozen babies. The amount of radiation produced by a modern nuclear plant is insignificant. Here, just so you know how much radiation you've already experienced in your life and had no clue, enjoy this 10 minute video about every nuclear detonation from 1945-1998.

Nurglitch wrote:A CANDU reactor wouldn't be having this problem. You know what happens when the coolant drains out of a CANDU reactor? The reactor stops. Doesn't require an enrichment process, and can run on the waste produced by less Canadian reactors. The downside? They're expensive, and sometimes human life is worth cutting a few corners.

Considering my father, up until his retirement, worked for Ontario Power Generation, I am a huge supporter of the CANDU reactors. On a humourous note about CANDU though, Canada is the accidental reason India became a nuclear power. We sold them a CANDU reactor, and they used the technology to build a bomb. Oops.

An excellent video. Shame it is not more up to date - would be interesting to see what the total is now.

And poor Nevada - surprised that the Neon is the only thing glowing there

Frazzled wrote:

Wolfun wrote:By all means, build nuclear power plants.

Just don't build them on top of unstable tectonic plates.
I would have thought that was obvious, but, evidentially not...

To be accurate you should say - near the ocean. It wasn't the quakes that got them.

Nuclear power stations need a great deal of water though, which was why they're on the coast.
But it was the earthquake that triggered the tsunami, too.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I'd totally support nuclear power if it wasn't for the waste management issue. Saying that accidents "won't happen" or "likely won't happen" just doesn't cut it, look at Japan ATM. Besides, how about we start actually using the energy we have effectively instead of building more power plants that promote careless energy waste?

The plant that's having trouble in Japan is using a 1960s design. All of the issues they're currently facing were already addressed in new designs (hopefully this will kick in the global communities teeth on properly renovating old plants). Pebble bed reactor design instead of fuel rod reactor design improves the situation further.

That said, I have to agree no nuclear plants should be built in the absence of the necessary waste storage facilities (we've already proven we won't deal with the issue after the fact), Italy doesn't even have adequate low level waste storage, let alone facilities for the high level stuff.

Tyyr wrote:
There's nothing wrong with conservation and I'm all for it. There's no good reason either financially or environmentally to use more than you actually need. However you're not going to get away from an every increasing demand for electricity. Certainly not with the two largest populations on the planet, China and India, modernizing at a phenomenal rate. Because while you're packing a bit more insulation into your attic China is slamming down a new 600MW coal fired power plant every single week.

In other words: We do the same thing to Chinese and Indian construction that we did to the Chinese fridges a couple of years back: We help them skip the ones that are bad for the environment (freon/badly insulated) and help them build good houses instead. The only thing that'd stop that would be gree... oh wait.

is in Italian, but the pictures explain more than words

I don't see why not.

I don't see why yes
pollution?
we still need more?
let us talk of pollution in 2011?
we still have energy to petroleum and coal!
How many of you know about Nikola Tesla?
you know it was done as it was the first ford and power?
You know the drill differenzsa between energy and matter?
What is geothermal?
solar panels?
wind energy?
alternative energy?
How do you make nuclear waste harmless?
Cancer?
you just want more energy, but you know the consequences?
how do plants live for thousands of years without nuclear power?
we have enough energy, but the Italian will to settle the debt with France!!!

Wolfun wrote:Nuclear power stations need a great deal of water though, which was why they're on the coast.

Actually all thermal power plants need a great deal of water. However you don't have to build them on the coast and in fact using salt water for cooling creates all kinds of problems. Most nukes in the US aren't built on the coast.



Rivers and large lakes work as well. Some plants don't even bother with those instead pumping water out of the ground to use for cooling. You don't have to build a nuke no the coast.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:In other words: We do the same thing to Chinese and Indian construction that we did to the Chinese fridges a couple of years back: We help them skip the ones that are bad for the environment (freon/badly insulated) and help them build good houses instead. The only thing that'd stop that would be gree... oh wait.

Yeah, that's what's stopping it. It's not those two countries tremendous rate of modernization. And again, make the houses as efficient as you like, China's demand for electricity is going up so fast that you're not stopping it. Sure, make all the efficient houses over there you like. That doesn't change the fact that they're building tens of thousands of new houses where there were none before. It doesn't change the fact that millions of people who once didn't have electricity now do. Again, conservation is great but you're not going to get China and India to stop needing new power plants by getting them to build more efficient houses. All China will need then is a new 450MW plant a week or maybe a 600MW plant every other week. You're still expanding the generating capacity of that country.

elam wrote:I don't see why yes
pollution?
we still need more?
let us talk of pollution in 2011?

Of course we don't need pollution. However we want all these cool toys that result in pollution. So you're going to have to accept some pollution if you want the toys. Doesn't mean we don't look for ways to minimize or eliminate pollution if we can find them, we should. Which is why nukes are great. They are among the least polluting ways we have so far to generate baseloaded electricty.

we still have energy to petroleum and coal!

The pollution from which is far worse than what nukes generate.

How many of you know about Nikola Tesla?

A lot of people. He had some great ideas, some we even use today. However his reputation has been blown completely out of proportion by people who haven't made the connection that just having a cool idea doesn't mean squat if you can't turn it into a practical working device.

You know the drill differenzsa between energy and matter?

From a theoretical physics standpoint, nothing really.

What is geothermal?

You drill a well down to a hot spot in the crust, pump water down the well and the hot spot converts it to steam. The steam rises back up, you use it to spin a turbine making electricity, condense the steam, and pump it back down the well. It's a very cool way to generate electricity. The down sides are that you need a hot spot relatively close to the surface which means you're usually in a fault zone, and the steam created is low quality leading to a lot of wear on the turbine, the pumps required to force water down a borehole like that are big, and you lose quite a bit of water in the process. Great way to generate electricity but very constrained in where you can situate it.

solar panels?

A gigantic waste of money. They can only generate electricity about 20% of the time and that 20% of the time is during a lull in demand. Solar is only practical on a small scale for people to try and offset some of their electric bills (though the payback can be measured in decades). If we can make a useful cost effective method to store solar energy so it can be utilized whenever we want to such as early morning or evening when demand is highest then solar starts to become more interesting. Right now solar is a joke as it generates electricity 20% of the time and costs as much per kilowatt as two nukes, which generate electricty 95%+ of the time and don't drop load because of clouds.

wind energy?

Highly dependant upon location. It requires consistent steady wind to generate electricty and is even more tempermental than solar. To top it off environmentalist groups here in the US are starting to oppose it on the grounds it kills bats and birds. So... yeah.

alternative energy?

Like what? The only realistic way to generate electricity you left off was hydro which is the best as it generates zero pollution. The downside is that environmental groups positively gak themselves when you suggest building a dam. If you can get permission to build a dam and set up a hydro station I say go for it, it's a great way to generate electricity.

How do you make nuclear waste harmless?

Well if you reprocess the fuel that will deal with a lot of the waste. For the rest you find a deep dark hole in a geologically stable region *COUGH*YuccaMountain*COUGH* and bury it.

Cancer?

Well if you somehow sneak into a nuclear power plant in your scuba gear, swim to the bottom of a spent fuel containment pool, and hug one of the spent fuel canisters cancer might be a concern. Otherwise I'm not sure what you're getting at.

you just want more energy, but you know the consequences?

Most people do but just ignore them as inconvenient. They'll demand ever more electricity, want it perfectly clean, safe, and reliable, and by the way they don't actually want to have to pay for it.

how do plants live for thousands of years without nuclear power?

Well first of all most don't. However all plants live by way of photosynthesis which is a really awesome biological process. The downside is the amount of energy they generate by it leaves them completely sessile and without any mental capacity at all. So if lying comatose in a field for your entire existence sounds awesome photosynthesis is where it's at.

Yes to more nuclear plants.

Yes to trying to conserve and save on the energy usage we use in our daily lives.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Tyyr wrote:
There's nothing wrong with conservation and I'm all for it. There's no good reason either financially or environmentally to use more than you actually need. However you're not going to get away from an every increasing demand for electricity. Certainly not with the two largest populations on the planet, China and India, modernizing at a phenomenal rate. Because while you're packing a bit more insulation into your attic China is slamming down a new 600MW coal fired power plant every single week.

In other words: We do the same thing to Chinese and Indian construction that we did to the Chinese fridges a couple of years back: We help them skip the ones that are bad for the environment (freon/badly insulated) and help them build good houses instead. The only thing that'd stop that would be gree... oh wait.

It's as if people value electricity more then they value the sense of self satisfaction that comes with utilizing fake or low yield green technologies.

After the referendum
Italy has said no to nuclear

Back to the black depths from which you came, thread of old!

elam wrote:After the referendum
Italy has said no to nuclear

We appreciate the update. Congratulations/bad luck as appropriate.

This one can sleep with the fishes, possibly three eyed ones that Mr. Burns himself wouldn't eat, once more.